Reading Goals 2018 – An Ode To Translators

It’s my birthday today! Rather than keep New Year resolutions, I set various goals on my birthday that follow through till the next birthday. As part of my bibliophilic endeavors, the past year was dedicated to reading regional books from around India – a way of travelling around the country through literature. India is a very large country with myriad local languages within its many states. Although Hindi is the national language, each of the states have their own languages, and there are many more dialects within. Reading a large number of translated books over the year got me thinking about the role played by translators in literature. We read books from around the world – many of them translated works of the literary greats – and aside of the name of the book and original author, the name of the translator often isn’t remembered. I also came across many poorly translated books – fabulous stories by the original writers, but appallingly translated with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and several editing issues as well. Badly translated books make you wish you knew the original language, because one misses out on so much literature on account of not knowing every possible language in the world.

This led me to plan reading goals for this year – read world literature comprising exclusively translated books, as an ode to translators who make books available to us around the globe. Italo Calvino had once said, “Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.” Translators need to not only be proficient in both the original language and the language being translated into, but also be efficient writers to ensure the author’s words stay as true to his/her intentions as possible. A good translator can cause a mediocre book to be well appreciated by efficient writing skills. A bad translator can turn readers away from a great piece of literature. This brings us back to Calvino – the most translated contemporary Italian writer, whose books have frequently been translated by William Weaver, and are a beauty to read even in the English language.

So, this year I will be identifying translators from around the globe. I have listed down languages starting from each letter of the English alphabet, and will be picking and reading translated works from each of those languages. Here’s the list I came up with and have already procured books from some of them.. A few books been lying around for a while and fit well with the theme. There were some classics I wanted to revisit and authors who had long been in the to-be-read list. As always, the books will include a mix of fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry. A challenging task ahead when a reader is completely at the mercy of translators. The languages I know have been pushed to the far end of their categories. If time permits, I will pick up translated works as a tribute to those translators. My reading habits over the years will also be taken into account when prioritizing literature – hence the preference of Greek over German, Swedish over Spanish, and Turkish over Tamil.

A – Arabic, Assamese, Armenian, Albanian

B – Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Bangla

C – Catalan, Croatian, Cantonese, Czech

D – Danish, Dutch

E – Estonian, Esperanto

F – Flemish, Finnish, French

G – Greek, Georgian, German

H – Hungarian, Hebrew, Hindi

I – Icelandic, Italian

J – Japanese, Javanese, Jarai

K – Korean, Kurdish, Khmer

L – Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian

M – Mandarin, Macedonian

N – Nepali, Norwegian

O – Ojibwa, Oriya

P – Polish, Portuguese, Persian

Q – Quechwa

R – Romanian, Russian, Rwanda, Romani

S – Serbian, Swedish, Swahili, Spanish

T – Turkish, Thai, Tamil

U – Ukranian, Urdu

V – Vietnamese

W – Welsh, Warlpiri

X – Xhosa

Y – Yiddish, Yoruba

Z – Zapotec, Zulu

Piled up a few of them – and have a couple on Kindle as well – to start off with.

If you have read English translations of any of the languages listed above, share your titles of recommended reads. If you’d like to join me in this endeavor, hop on board. Let’s read the world! 🙂

6 thoughts on “Reading Goals 2018 – An Ode To Translators”

I am spoilt. Although I have an English mother tongue, I have been living in Switzerland for 50 years and I read German books in German, in which I am now quiet fluent. I have read English translations but sorry to say a lot goes missing

I can read in Hindi, Marathi, French and Italian. Beyond these, I’m at the mercy of translators. And that’s true – some translated books are so bad, you wonder whether the translation is poor or it was originally a badly written book. Very few authors like Italo Calvino praise their translators, so one can be assured of quality translations. And I recently read Milan Kundera’s ‘The Joke’ which the author has referred to as “the definitive version” after sitting with a bunch of translators to ensure their words stayed as true to his own as possible.

[…] a literary bang! The first book of the year and what a treat it has been. In continuation with my Birthday Reading Goals of reading translated books from languages starting with each letter of the English alphabet, I had […]

[…] This is the original blog-post I had written on my birthday when I started the reading list. Another fourteen more languages to go. 🙂 I am trying to keep one language for each alphabet, but I also have books from more languages, which will be read as I get the time. […]

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